


Confessions

by littlealex



Category: Sorted (Website) RPF
Genre: Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:08:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24066358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlealex/pseuds/littlealex
Summary: Mike’s not quite sure how this happened.
Relationships: Mike Huttlestone/Barry Taylor
Kudos: 25





	Confessions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thoseredshorts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoseredshorts/gifts).



> Second ever Sorted fic! Thanks again to the Discord crew and this one is for Ash ♥ Prompt was "Barry and Mike, they both stayed late to edit and ended up getting drunk and confessing".

Mike’s not quite sure how this happened.

It had been a normal Friday in the studio - coffee, production meeting, filming some B-roll, Zoom meeting with sponsors, Friday drinks, and then he hides in the loft to do some first-pass editing that he always likes to do with a bit of a buzz because it quietens the overthinking part of the whole affair - but this time, he’s not alone. For some reason, Barry’s there with him, and there’s, like, a _lot_ of empty beer bottles next to the couch. He can’t really see the computer screen anymore, either, but part of that is that Barry is just sitting so goddamn _close_ and that’s usually enough for him to lose focus even when fully sober.

It’s not even _close_ anymore, Barry’s practically sitting on Mike’s lap at this point, and the laptop is losing the battle for space, so Mike saves the complete lack of progress he’s made and claps the computer shut and moves it to the desk, tuning back into the conversation he was really trying to follow.

“D’you know what I’m mean... what I mean?” Barry’s definitely been talking for a while, and some part of Mike has been listening, but not all of him. He’s pretty sure it’s been a treatise on avocado that he’s heard before, so he just nods.

“They’re not just for hipsters, Baz,” Mike agrees, and he figures it’s a good blanket statement for anything Barry might have been banging on about. He loves Barry, truly, but sometimes he just talks. A lot.

And that, right there, that’s kind of the problem. Well, problem _s_ , plural, because Mike loves Barry like he’s pretty sure Barry would be mortified to know about, and also, even on days like today, when Mike’s feeling reckless and foolish (and drunk) enough to tell him, he just doesn’t shut up long enough to let it happen. Mike’s a little bit glad for it, because it’s meant that he’s never had to face it. He can hide it away in the corner of his heart where he keeps things he’d rather not see (though he pulls them out to torture himself now and again; who doesn’t?), but the other thing that lives down there? The singularly depressing ache that comes from knowing he’ll never really be able to get over this without getting through it.

Now that the computer’s gone, Barry takes full advantage and curls his legs up and over Mike’s lap, his whole torso pressed against Mike now, one arm slung around Mike’s shoulders, and he’s just... everywhere. “You understand me,” Barry says with feeling, fingers pressing into Mike’s collarbone, and sighs deeply. “Only you, Mike.”

It’s a bit weird. Mike’s not sure if he heard it right, or felt it right, and maybe it’s the alcohol talking but he hears something different in Barry’s voice. Something heavier, and it’s like he dropped a bowling ball in Mike’s lap rather than just a weirdly intimate compliment. Or maybe it’s both but, fuck, it’s making Mike nervous. The kind of nervous he gets before something important - pitches to sponsors or confessing to stealing Ben’s lunch (it only happened once, Ben was that scary) or coming out to his mother.

He stays silent, waiting for Barry to pick up the talking stick again and take the conversation on a tangent about something - anything - to stop the goddamned echoing silence ringing in his ears. But it doesn’t happen. Barry just stays quiet, not making eye contact, his fingers very... _deliberately_ still, burning into the bare skin stretched across his collarbones with their intentional inaction. Mike can feel everything, and it’s not as though he’s sober (he’s definitely not), but his nerve endings are buzzing. He can feel every breath Barry takes, both the warm air wafting across his neck as well as the rise and fall of his chest against his side. He’s paralysed, stuck to the couch cushions, and absolutely shitting himself that this is going to be forever known as the day he fucks up 20 years of friendship.

“Hey,” Barry says, but it’s not the kind of ‘hey’ that says he’s going to change the subject. It’s the kind of ‘hey’ that says ‘you might not like what I’m about to say’, and Mike wouldn’t have thought that he physically has room for more panic, but here he is. “Promise not to be mad?” Barry lifts his head - sort of rolls it around and then up, like he’s stacking each vertebra - and Mike dares to meet his eyes. _Dumb-ass move_ , he thinks, but he’s locked in now so he just holds Barry’s piercing fucking gaze (how does he look like he’s actually _with it_ right now) and nods dumbly, because he is _not_ about to open his idiot mouth.

“You don’t have to do anything with this, okay, but I’m just saying...” It feels like an inauspicious start, and Mike really wishes he’d had, like, _one_ less beer as his stomach churns with anxiety. Barry blinks, slowly, a hitch in his breath and Mike. Actually. Can’t take the fucking tension. But he does, he holds on, gritting his teeth and waiting for the fucking anvil to drop already, because that’s what he knows how to do.

“I’m just saying that I actually fucking love you, Mike.” Barry huffs out a laugh, and for a second Mike’s heart is still in limbo because what the fuck - does that laugh mean he’s joking, or just means like a friend, because that was not the lead up to a friend love, and what. The actual. Fuck.

Mike refuses to move a muscle, teeth still grit together like it’s the only thing holding his soul together (which it might actually be), and Barry seems to get it. “What I mean,” he clarifies, “I mean I’m _in_ love with you. I mean it like I want to hold your hand and sleep in your bed and kiss your mouth and run my fingers through your hair and -”

But that’s enough of that. Mike broke at the words ‘in love’, but it takes a moment to fully fall apart. He releases his teeth, and the rush of blood to his head makes him light-headed and a little bit like he wants to vomit - could be the alcohol, could be the decades of emotional repression - but he takes a sharp breath in and he’s there, _right_ there, in the centre of the moment, and -

Mike’s quicker than he’s ever been, darting forward to catch Barry’s mouth with his own. That’ll shut him up. He twists, finding his hands and sending one straight to Barry’s hipbone, the other sliding up the back of his neck, settling in the soft hair at the base. Barry melts, and Mike can’t help it; he smirks into the kiss, keeping their lips joined even as Barry catches a breath. “Yeah,” he mumbles, stealing another kiss. “Me too.”

Mike’s not quite sure how this happened. But he’s very glad it did.


End file.
